Is Your Sheep Stressed? Just Ask It Stressed-out sheep bleat out their anguish, U.S. researchers reported. They found that,like humans, sheep communicate stress by changing the timbre of their voices. Mark Feinstein of Hampshire College in Amherst,Massachusetts, said his findings could help farmers and, of course, the sheep they herd. An expert in bioacoustics*, Feinstein did his work at Teagasc, an Irish government agricultural research organization. He isolated sheep and separated lambs from their mothers as part of his experiments ?then recorded their bleats. His recordings suggest that sheep express stress by altering the timbre of their vocalizations, or the overall quality of sounds, rather than by changing pitch or loudness. Stress can be measured by taking an animal's blood, but it would be much easier, cheaper and, yes, less stressful to simply listen, Feinstein said. * bioacoustics：生物聲學，研究對象為生物發(fā)出的聲音及影響生物的聲音，尤其是與生物間溝通有關的聲音。 “聽”羊羔訴苦 美國研究人員說，不堪重負的綿羊會用叫聲訴說苦悶。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，綿羊和人一樣會通過改變聲音的音色來抒發(fā)壓抑的情緒。馬薩諸塞州阿姆赫斯特鎮(zhèn)漢普郡學院的馬克·費恩斯泰因宣稱自己的發(fā)現(xiàn)可以助農(nóng)夫們一臂之力，對他們放牧的羊群當然也有好處。費恩斯泰因是一位生物聲學專家，在愛爾蘭政府的農(nóng)業(yè)研究機構Teagasc進行研究工作。他的實驗內(nèi)容之一是把綿羊隔離起來，并把母羊和小羊分開，然后記錄它們的叫聲。錄音顯示綿羊表達壓抑感的方式是改變音色，亦即聲音的整體性質(zhì)，而不是改變音調(diào)或聲音的大小。費恩斯泰因說，檢測動物壓力的方法之一是采血，但傾聽是一種簡便得多、成本也低得多的方法。還有，它也是最輕松的方法。 Remarks：看起來，“狼來了”的悲劇可以避免了——是真是假，聽聽音色就行了(狼對羊造成的壓力想必不小)。